President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union next week to 25%, a move that could jolt the world economy at a fragile moment. Trump said in a social media post that the EU "is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal," though he did...
The message from Mark Carney to Conservative MP Jamil Jivani was very clear -- there's only one player on the Canadian team negotiating with the US and that's his government. But is there? Jivani is in Washington again saying he's working for Canada. The plot thickens. Plus, Avi Lewis passes up another opportunity to run for the party he leads...
The Conservatives' fundraising machine continues to outpace all other federal parties after bringing in more than $9.4 million in the last quarter, though the Liberals are closing the gap. Elections Canada has released fundraising data for the four major parties for the quarter ending in March. The Liberals raised more than $6.8 million over the quarter, bringing their total for...
The federal government says it will quadruple the maximum fine that can be levied against airlines for repeated violations of the air passenger bill of rights from $250,000 to $1 million. Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon made the announcement during a news conference on Friday. The regulations, formally known as the air passenger protection regulations (APPR), came into force in 201...
The federal government has referred one more individual to the police this month as part of its probe into over-billing by consultants, making this the 10th case of suspected procurement fraud referred to the police for criminal investigation.
Canadians’ views of the federal government remain largely positive, with a majority expressing satisfaction with the government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney. Among decided voters, 48% say they would vote for the Liberal Party of Canada if a federal election were held today, compared to 37% for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party. The New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois...
The perceptions of British Columbians on the five contenders in the Conservative Party of BC’s leadership race have not changed dramatically over the past two months, and no candidate would award the party a significant advantage over the governing BC New Democratic Party (NDP) in a snap election, a new Research Co. poll has found. In the online survey of...
The economist John Maynard Keynes is reputed to have said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Still, this is a hard piece for me to write. I devoted several years of my life to helping create the Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero Alliance and its carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) project...
It’s been nearly a week, and we are still no closer to knowing what the Carney government means when it talks about setting up “Canada’s first sovereign wealth fund.” I don’t just mean what it would do, or how it would work, or what problem it’s intended to solve. I mean, quite literally, what is it? I suspect the government...
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government will look at making changes to the law depending on what comes out of investigations into a data breach involving three million voters.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says a key approval for a cross-border oil pipeline project to deliver more of the province's crude to the United States is coming after years of advocacy from her government. U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a presidential permit authorizing the Bridger Pipeline expansion, considered a partial revival of the Keystone XL pipeline project. The Keystone...
Canada is at a crossroads. In the coming days and weeks, the federal government will decide whether the country compromises its climate commitments or embraces a more sustainable path towards a greener future.
The time is coming for Prime Minister Mark Carney to overhaul his cabinet, and everyone in Ottawa has some idea how he might do it. Picking a cabinet is an increasingly difficult task. Prime ministers must ensure various regions, languages, identities, genders, loyalties and competencies are represented fairly. You need politicos, communicators and managers, and you need to instil the...
It’s official. The Great Pierre Poilievre Tone Experiment of early 2026 is over. After donning the mantle of the reasonable, Poilievre is back to his natural pugilistic self. And so is his team, with House Leader Andrew Scheer now accusing the (checks notes) National Post of being in the tank for the Liberals for the crime of (checks notes again)...
“In a crisis, fortune favours the bold,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a fireside chat video, posted online earlier this month. The Prime Minister laid out the foundation for his Canada Strong plan, which he promised would be transformative, comprehensive and ambitious. But if fortune indeed favours the bold, as Mr. Carney said, the forces of the universe will...
A pessimist could construe Donald Trump’s warning about American troop reductions in Germany as a less brazen modern equivalent to the non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. The U.S. president is involved in a spat with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over his conduct in the war with Iran and has said the Pentagon is...
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is the country’s most popular premier. That’s unsurprising. He has a penchant for pursuing policies that tend to poll well and is known for having his finger on the pulse of the people. But while pursuing policies because they poll well may work some of the time — as with Kinew’s recent announcement to ban surveillance...
Oil briefly hit US$125 on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump said the Strait of Hormuz blockade would continue for months. It may seem odd to say that the oil spike caused by the war creates a dilemma for Canada, but the country must now make a difficult decision – and the United Arab Emirates’ departure from OPEC this week...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is riding a political high. He’s more popular now than he was when Canadians went to the polls one year ago, with polling firms showing record-setting approval ratings for the Liberal leader and the government in general. But roughly 10 years ago, similar things were said about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government at their...
As a royal, Charles’s history has been marked by promise unfulfilled and unending frustration. It’s been a life in an antechamber beset by controversy and scandal surrounding him or his wider family, all as he waited forever for the Crown – only to be greeted by cancer, for which he is still being treated, upon attaining it. It’s like Charles...
Nate Erskine-Smith is a politician in a pickle of his own making. Once again, he pines to be premier. Now, he has a four-step plan to get there.
The PM's economic transformation agenda needs to deliver some visible and impactful results in the next 12 to 18 months, or another line of vulnerability will open up. One year in as prime minister, and Mark Carney is arguably at the top of his political game. He just secured a majority government through some byelection wins and five floor crossings...
The real battle is inside the UCP. Alberta’s separatist drive isn’t really a fight for the future of Canada. It’s a battle for the United Conservative Party. The latest polling from Janet Brown, commissioned by the CBC, shows separatist support is stuck at 27 per cent, while 67 per cent will vote against leaving Canada.
It is a time-honoured parliamentary tradition for finance ministers to congratulate themselves on making more progress than can possibly be justified by the facts. François-Philippe Champagne was no exception, as he presented his government’s spring fiscal update in the House of Commons on Tuesday. He said his government is spending less, so that it can invest more, and added that...
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tabled the Spring Economic Update (SEU) in Parliament on April 28, 2026 – six months after the fall budget and on the one-year anniversary of the federal election; a symmetry between the political and financial cycles that underscored Prime Minister Mark Carney’s economic credentials.
Though loquacious by nature, the finance minister wasted relatively little time Tuesday getting to the relatively good news. "Mr. Speaker, [these] are serious times and Canadians expect us to be good stewards of our economy and manage our public finances with thoughtful fiscal discipline," François-Philippe Champagne told the House of Commons as he presented the federal government's first spring economic...
If you have been wondering what meaning to attach to that irritating phrase the Carney Liberals use to describe themselves, “Canada’s New Government” – which was irritating enough when it was first employed, under Stephen Harper, when it was actually a new government – wonder no longer. As this Spring Economic Update makes abundantly clear, it means nothing whatever. Or...
“Let me make it real for you.” In that one short, sharp sentence, Finance Minister François Philippe Champagne acknowledged the political juggling act that Mark Carney’s government is trying to pull off as it embarks on its second year of power.
Nothing is likely to shore up Conservative esprit de corps like the sight of Patty Hajdu rising in the House of Commons and accusing the Official Opposition of being “against Canada.”
Congratulations, Canada! On Monday, our nation joined an exclusive club: countries with sovereign wealth funds. Norway, Kuwait and other resource-rich nations have long tapped royalties and budget surpluses to fund investment vehicles: in this era of geopolitical uncertainty and an erratic neighbour, Prime Minister Mark Carney thinks it’s time Canada does the same.
The thing about the new Canadian “sovereign wealth fund” (SWF) announced on Monday by Prime Minister Mark Carney is that, judging by what we know so far, it’ll be pretty much the opposite of what he’s comparing it to. The prime minister cited Norway as a leading example of a country with a successful SWF — and so it is...
For all the talk that Prime Minister Mark Carney is a small-c conservative his announcement that Canada will create a sovereign wealth fund was a confirmation of his capital-L Liberal predilections. The form of the fund might be a little surprising, given that the sovereign wealth funds of resource-rich nations are usually seeded with windfall earnings socked away for the...
My March podcast interview with Pierre Poilievre drew a lot of attention, but one of the sharpest responses came from Max Fawcett, an award-winning Calgary journalist who’s been sharply critical of the notion that the West’s resource sector is singled out for mistreatment. Max just flat cancelled his subscription to this newsletter, and tore a strip off me on Bluesky...
Asked about how he went bankrupt, one of the characters in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises replies, “gradually, then suddenly.” That’s what’s in store for Canada’s supply management system, an outdated, regressive policy from the 1970s that protects the dairy and poultry sectors by artificially raising consumer prices and drastically restricting imports. It will disappear, gradually then suddenly...
Sovereign wealth funds are typically established by countries to manage their surplus wealth. Canada has just established the Canada Strong Fund — this country’s first national sovereign wealth fund — despite being deeply in the red. In short, there is no surplus wealth to manage.
No Canadian prime minister has ever faced a more difficult relationship with an American president than Prime Minister Mark Carney does with Donald Trump.
The video playing was clearly Pete Hoekstra, the frequently combative U.S. ambassador to Canada. But something was off. He kept referring to Canada as a partner?
Gen. Jennie Carignan will present strategies to drastically expand CAF, but current targets remain elusive. The Liberal government will soon be asked to consider options to drastically increase the size of the Canadian military, says the country’s top military commander. Gen. Jennie Carignan, the chief of the defence staff, told CBC News in a recent interview that she’s finalizing a...
A Postmedia-Leger poll published this week shows the Conservatives narrowing the gap slightly on the Liberals, but satisfaction with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s performance remains high among Canadians overall. Forty-eight per cent of Canadians said they support the Liberals, compared to 37 per cent for the Conservatives, when asked which political party they would vote for if a federal election...
The federal government is set to make a major funding announcement for a Canada Soccer national training centre today. A government source, who did not disclose how much funding will be announced, says the money will go to plan, design and pre-construct the centre. The federal government announced in its spring economic update this week that it's setting aside $66...
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem says he's "encouraged" by the federal government's efforts to diversify the economy and protect it against increasingly common shocks to global trade. He also says Ottawa's fiscal update, tabled earlier this week, will likely have little impact on the central bank's forecasts for inflation. Macklem made the comments in an interview with The Canadian...
The new “strategic partnership” that Prime Minister Mark Carney struck with China this year would be damaged if Ottawa sends more military vessels through the Taiwan Strait or if Canadian parliamentarians keep meeting with officials in Taiwan, Beijing’s envoy says. In an interview Thursday, Wang Di, China’s ambassador, said he’s optimistic about warming ties between Beijing and Ottawa but laid...
Contract notice shows Canada is included in $1.1B artillery system deal. The Pentagon announced this week that it has secured a $1.1-billion contract with U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin to manufacture M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) for several allied countries including Canada. The notice was posted Wednesday by the U.S. Department of War on its contracting website. It...
Jamil Jivani returned to the U.S. capital this week to carry 'the Conservative party's Team Canada message.' Prime Minister Mark Carney dismissed Conservative MP Jamil Jivani's recent trade trip to Washington D.C., saying on Thursday that Jivani can go where he wants, but he won't learn anything Carney doesn't know already. "It has not been our experience that people have...
Premier Doug Ford said Thursday he does not feel he’s lost touch with the average person, despite a backlash over a scrapped plan to buy a jet and new polling numbers showing his popularity declining. “I’m in touch with the people on a daily basis,” Ford told CTV News Toronto in an exclusive interview. He said no other politician “in...
Canada's new parliamentary budget officer says the government's spring economic update lacks details on spending targets and results. Annette Ryan, who appeared before the House of Commons government operations committee today, says the update provided some metrics on progress but few mentions of risks and specific objectives. She says it instead introduced a range of new and und
Prime Minister Mark Carney said it doesn’t hurt to have Conservatives travelling to the U.S. at a time when cross-border trade talks are on the rocks, but it doesn’t necessarily help either. Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, who has a personal friendship with U.S. Vice-President JD Vance, was on his second self-assigned mission to Washington again this week. His trip follows...
Opposition MPs say the Liberals used their new power as a majority government today to shelve debate on demands the government provide documents about a $6.6 billion IT project that has gone far over budget. While the project to modernize the systems the government uses to deliver benefits to Canadians, such as old age security, launched in 2017 with a...
Prime Minister Mark Carney insisted his government is doing an effective job of keeping Iranians associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps out of the country, after one former IRGC official was granted a visa. When asked Thursday about Iranian Football Federation president Mehdi Taj being denied entry to Canada earlier this week, Carney said he can't talk about individual...
The Alberta government believes it will have Indigenous support for its plan to build a new oil pipeline to the Pacific coast when it’s unveiled in June.
Elections Alberta has obtained a court injunction that will force an Alberta separatist group to pull down an electoral list detailing the personal information of millions of Alberta voters. The agency appeared in Edmonton court Thursday morning to ask Court of King's Bench Justice John Little for a temporary injunction against a pro-independence group. CBC News is not naming the...
Pay 50 per cent on raw metal shipments — while other industries pay 25 per cent tariffs on the full price of finished goods containing those metals — or move production. That’s the message this month from the United States to Canadian steel and aluminum producers and their downstream supply chains.
United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Canadians looking for insights into the future of bilateral trade this week that "America First" is policy, not a slogan, and they should not expect a return to the way things were. Sources who attended a roundtable with U.S. President Donald Trump's trade czar in Washington on Wednesday told The Canadian Press that...
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order authorizing the Bridger Pipeline’s proposed project to transport Canadian crude from the U.S.-Canada border to Wyoming.
The success rate for basic training in the Canadian military has dropped to 77 per cent over the past fiscal year as the Canadian Armed Forces grapple with the impact of recruiting changes designed to boost enrolment, according to a leaked internal report. That compares with a historical average of 85 per cent, according to an internal January, 2026, report...
Prime Minister Mark Carney named former cabinet minister Jonathan Wilkinson on Thursday as the next ambassador to the European Union. Wilkinson confirmed the news in a post to X after sources close to Wilkinson confirmed the new role to CTV News. The appointment has been speculated upon since as early as last September. In a letter posted online, Wilkinson said...
Elections Alberta says it's investigating the possibility that a provincial party or a party official illegally used or shared an official voter list. Such lists contain the personal information of Albertans, including names, addresses and phone numbers. Under provincial law only political parties, members of the legislature, prospective candidates and constituency associations are given access to the list to solicit...
Finance Department says Financial Crimes Agency would be distinct from RCMP. The Liberal government is looking to set up a new federal law enforcement agency dedicated to financial crimes, a dramatic undertaking to shake up how money laundering and fraud are investigated in Canada. "Canada has just, what feels like all of a sudden, established a new federal police agency,"...
Canada has been selected to host a multinational bank to provide "long-term, low-cost financing" for defence projects by NATO members and allies, the federal government said Wednesday. The Globe and Mail newspaper first reported the decision following the end of multinational negotiations earlier Wednesday that were hosted in Montreal. A news release issued late Wednesday says the defence bank will...
71% of Albertans don't want to leave Canada. 17% do. Who can influence the other 12% and what will matter to them? 120 years ago Alberta became a Canadian province. This year, residents may or may not have a vote on whether they want to remain. The proposed questions of the Smith government aren’t directly on this question - they...
Hanwha’s submarine bid has within a few short months become a potential lifeline for Canada’s auto industry. The South Korean corporation is partnering with the Auto Parts Manufacturers Association (APMA) to build military armoured vehicles in Canada. It’s a strategy that could help it win a lucrative contract and keep the tariff-hit auto sector from sinking further. The vehicles would...
Canada has been selected as the host nation of a new multinational defence bank as negotiations among the founding countries ended in Montreal on Wednesday, according to two sources. The decision was made after the final of three rounds of negotiations hosted by Canada and involving the 19 founding countries of the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank.
Eliot Pence of Dominion Dynamics is using venture capital to build military equipment he hopes the government will one day buy. When Eliot Pence needed a name for the high-tech drone factory he has established in an Ottawa industrial park, he turned to what some might consider an unlikely inspiration: the swashbuckling coureur des bois of Canada’s past.
The federal Liberal government is looking at selling Canadian airports off to private owners saying it wants to streamline operations and passenger services, attract more business investment to Canada, and even direct possible proceeds into a national sovereign wealth fund. The morning after the spring economic update hinted at the government’s plans, Transport Minister Steven Mac
TORONTO -- Police presence in Toronto during the World Cup may be "stronger than we've ever seen at any event," the force said Wednesday as the federal government announced up to $145 million for security over the upcoming soccer tournament.
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union next week to 25%, a move that could jolt the world economy at a fragile moment. Trump said in a social media post that the EU "is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal," though he did...
President Donald Trump's administration is arguing that the war in Iran has already ended because of the ceasefire that began in early April, an interpretation that would allow the White House to avoid the need to seek congressional approval.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- With President Donald Trump's poll numbers fading, beleaguered Florida Democrats hoped this year would be an opportunity to gain ground in the state.
Amtrak is considering allowing people to store guns in lockboxes on most of its trains, which critics say would weaken security measures that instead should be strengthened in light of the shooting at last weekend's White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union next week to 25%, a move that could jolt the world economy at a fragile moment. Trump said in a social media post that the EU "is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal," though he did...
The new “strategic partnership” that Prime Minister Mark Carney struck with China this year would be damaged if Ottawa sends more military vessels through the Taiwan Strait or if Canadian parliamentarians keep meeting with officials in Taiwan, Beijing’s envoy says. In an interview Thursday, Wang Di, China’s ambassador, said he’s optimistic about warming ties between Beijing and Ottawa but laid...
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order authorizing the Bridger Pipeline’s proposed project to transport Canadian crude from the U.S.-Canada border to Wyoming.
The United Arab Emirates said Tuesday it will leave OPEC effective May 1, stripping the oil cartel of one of its largest producers and further weakening its leverage over global oil supplies and prices. The UAE's decision had been rumored as a possibility for some time, as it pushed back in recent years against OPEC production quotas it felt had...
President Donald Trump and top officials were rushed to safety after shots were fired near stairs leading down to the main ballroom.
The first year of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s leadership has had a transformational impact on both Canada’s foreign policy and its standing in the world. The shift has been especially evident in the Indo-Pacific, where Ottawa is more active, more strategic, and more ambitious than it has ever been.
Canada’s long-standing openness helped build one of the world’s most respected immigration systems. However, the intellectual establishment’s push for ever-expanding “inclusivity” has driven that openness beyond what many Canadians consider reasonable.
A comparison of two separate surveys conducted during the 2021 and 2025 election years shows a misalignment between the positions of election candidates and those of their constituents on the division of powers in Canada. While the views of candidates and voters were relatively close on this issue in 2021, the gap widened in 2025. The percentage of voters who...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
By now, most of you reading this column are aware of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement earlier this week that the government is launching a sovereign wealth fund (entitled the Canada Strong Fund). There is, in theory, nothing wrong with such an idea. Indeed, the logic behind such a fund is quite sound.
Earlier this month, the federal government quietly released its annual inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, now with data up to 2024. The news was not good. Carbon pollution reduction effectively stalled in 2024 (down a measly 0.3 per cent from the previous year and down only 10 per cent from 2005). Canada, simply put, is not on the trajectory...
I nearly drove off the road when I heard Pope Leo’s powerful message on the radio this week.
At Issue this week: What Mark Carney's spending goals outlined in the spring economic update mean for the deficit. Conservatives battle Liberal efforts to move committees behind closed doors. And how will Carney's new sovereign wealth fund help Canadians?
Food affordability remains a priority for many Canadians. This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government unveiled the spring economic update. It included some already announced measures aimed to make groceries more affordable. But some people are considering others measures to make food cheaper: public grocery stores. Federal NDP leader, Avi Lewis, has been talking about establishing a network of public...
Plus: The families of the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting victims are set to seek nearly 1-billion dollars in lawsuits against Open A-I, the Canadian economy sees growth in the first quarter, Canada will host a new NATO bank, the Prime Minister has named the new E-U ambassador, and how the boom in romance novels can help other media meet consumer...
On this special edition, Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric speak with Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne ahead of the release of his Spring Economic Update. They press him on how the government plans to attract investment in a time of global uncertainty, and find out how it is balancing fiscal prudence with mounting economic pressures. And finally, the most contentious question...
